Just found out my daughter is gifted, but her grades are average?

[Serap]

Is this silly? I look at my daughter differently now…I listen to her more attentively than I did before. When she asks me the 100th question of the day, I answer her or google it for her with more enthusiasm. When she forgets her hat for the 100th time, I understand that she has trouble remembering things bc her mind is always busy with information.

She still loses a point on her rewards chart though if she forgets her hat AGAIN

 

[Serap]

Thanks!

I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to tell her about the scores, but we will be taking the kids out to her favorite restaurant to celebrate.

My daughter’s psychologist said to be straight up about ti like a matter of fact type of statement; pretty much exactly what you wrote above.

 

[Xantippe]

Is this silly? I look at my daughter differently now…I listen to her more attentively than I did before. When she asks me the 100th question of the day, I answer her or google it for her with more enthusiasm. When she forgets her hat for the 100th time, I understand that she has trouble remembering things bc her mind is always busy with information.

She still loses a point on her rewards chart though if she forgets her hat AGAIN

Ha!

There’s a famous experiment where teachers were told that certain randomly chosen students had high test scores.

The students that were falsely identified as higher-performing then had their real performance rise because of the impact of teachers having higher expectations of them.

(I can’t find a cite for this–it doesn’t contain any good googleable terms.)

 

[EasterJoy]

Ha!

There’s a famous experiment where teachers were told that certain randomly chosen students had high test scores.

The students that were falsely identified as higher-performing then had their real performance rise because of the impact of teachers having higher expectations of them.

(I can’t find a cite for this–it doesn’t contain any good googleable terms.)

Actually, one study was done with a class of 5th graders in which the children were given a standardized test and then *briefly *praised on an individual basis for their efforts with “you are really smart” or “you must be a hard worker.” The students praised for their work ethic far out-performed the ones praised for their inherent intelligence. The ones who were told they were inherently intelligent showed signs of fearing failure and under-performance on later tests, choosing less-demanding routes.

 

[Xantippe]

Ah, here it is:

npr.org/blogs/health/2012/09/18/161159263/teachers-expectations-can-influence-how-students-perform

"Rosenthal told the teachers that this very special test from Harvard had the very special ability to predict which kids were about to be very special — that is, which kids were about to experience a dramatic growth in their IQ.

“After the kids took the test, he then chose from every class several children totally at random. There was nothing at all to distinguish these kids from the other kids, but he told their teachers that the test predicted the kids were on the verge of an intense intellectual bloom.”

“As he followed the children over the next two years, Rosenthal discovered that the teachers’ expectations of these kids really did affect the students. “If teachers had been led to expect greater gains in IQ, then increasingly, those kids gained more IQ,” he says.”

That was in 1964, in what I like to call the golden age of unethical psychological experiments.

 

[EasterJoy]

Is this silly? I look at my daughter differently now…I listen to her more attentively than I did before. When she asks me the 100th question of the day, I answer her or google it for her with more enthusiasm. When she forgets her hat for the 100th time, I understand that she has trouble remembering things bc her mind is always busy with information.

She still loses a point on her rewards chart though if she forgets her hat AGAIN

Do you have other children? You’d probably better start looking at *all *of them differently now.

The only thing worse than being the “gifted” student who still routinely goes through the embarrassment of not knowing where her hat went is to feel the bitterness of being the sibling of the student who is celebrated for being gifted, with everybody hanging on her every question like it came from Einstein, even though she doesn’t work that hard and couldn’t keep her head with her shoulders if it weren’t attached.

Everybody wants to be listened to as if their ideas matter. Everybody needs to be encouraged to get out there with an “if you don’t ever fall, you haven’t pushed yourself yet” attitude. Everybody needs to know that they have gifts inside them and tools outside them that they need to work to uncover and put to use. Everybody needs to know that success won’t fall into their laps and that a warm circle of love will always be theirs to give and receive, even on the days when they aren’t all that excited to be around themselves.

Nobody, Einstein included, ever got anywhere without being willing to fail and willing to work. As for being gifted, the most important thing is to listen for what God means for you to do. Moses wasn’t “gifted”–no human would have chosen him as a spokesman. The Apostles weren’t learned. Mozart, meanwhile, died poor and before his time, probably the victim of a combination of an arduous work schedule and fast living among ill-chosen company. He did not live to see how celebrated he would become after death. How many gifted persons have followed in his unfortunate footsteps in one way or another since! What could be more tragic?

Be at God’s disposal, that is the most important thing.

 

[BobCatholic]

Want to also add…best $2,400 I ever spent!!!

I suspect that any kid, if their parents paid nice money like that, would be “gifted”

This is NOT an insult toward your kid. This is my suspicion of the provider.

 

[Xantippe]

I suspect that any kid, if their parents paid nice money like that, would be “gifted”

This is NOT an insult toward your kid. This is my suspicion of the provider.

But they were looking for learning disabilities, weren’t they?

 

[BobCatholic]

But they were looking for learning disabilities, weren’t they?

I don’t know. But when I saw that huge amount of money cited after a finding of “gifted” that made me very suspicious (of the provider). Especially the off-the-charts high number. That struck me as “excessive” - I’d love to see the distribution of the scores of the kids that took the test for that provider. I bet there’s a lot of off-the-charts high numbers…money speaks.

I am a father of an autistic kid. One of the first things I did was research some of these “autism treatment” places. Not all were legit.

For some of the non-legit places: There is no sticker price. Not covered by insurance or Medicaid. You don’t know how much it costs until after they know how much you make. So they know how to milk you nicely. I rejected them quickly.

 

[Xantippe]

I am a father of an autistic kid. One of the first things I did was research some of these “autism treatment” places. Not all were legit.

For some of the non-legit places: There is no sticker price. Not covered by insurance or Medicaid. You don’t know how much it costs until after they know how much you make. So they know how to milk you nicely. I rejected them quickly.

There is a lot of shadiness in autism treatment.

 

[BobCatholic]

There is a lot of shadiness in autism treatment.

And in psychology in general IMO. Lots of pseudoscience masquerading as science. There is a lot of value in psychology, and it has done some great stuff, but I cannot ignore the questionable stuff.

 

[3DOCTORS]

Is this silly? I look at my daughter differently now…I listen to her more attentively than I did before. When she asks me the 100th question of the day, I answer her or google it for her with more enthusiasm. When she forgets her hat for the 100th time, I understand that she has trouble remembering things bc her mind is always busy with information.

She still loses a point on her rewards chart though if she forgets her hat AGAIN

That’s sweet. I’m glad you appreciate her uniqueness. One thing that I can say for myself - and it’s hard to know how much is giftedness and how much is ADD (the ADD and also autism spectrum are common on my maternal side but in me it’s under the level to “qualify” for that additional label! ).

Anyway - where was I? LOL - oh, yes - the fact that our brains - and brains of creative people - to use the cliche’ - are often “wired differently.” Or they’re so full it’s like having way too many browser tabs open at once! That is why we can be smart but absent-minded. And we might intuit the answer but when the teacher says “Show your work” we’re like I went from A to Z, skipped B, C, D, E etc. and all in an instant.

Okay, we don’t always have superpowers to that degree - but we’re not “neurotypical” either. We may rebel simply because we can cut through education-speak and BS . . . it can be a blessing sometimes, a curse others. :juggle:

 

[Xantippe]

Ever wonder what happens when every kid is held to that same standard of there is no standard? When it’s considered unreasonable to expect a kid to put their name on their paper? Or follow any other guidance like staying in their seat, or not talking when the teacher is, or not texting or placing calls during class?

My daughter just completed her teaching credential. (FWIW- she was classified as gifted and one of those who rarely had to read/study for subjects other than math) She’s had a passion for teaching since she was in high school and started mentoring/tutoring other kids. Got her degree in education, went through the credentialing program run by her university which is about 18 months and consists mostly of teaching in schools in the area, observed and critiqued by teachers and folks from her university. First year, she loved it- felt so rewarding to her, could see marked improvements in her students. Really exciting as a parent to hear her talk about how her challenged students improved, what strategies she applied etc. The school loved her and offered her a full time job with ‘emergency’ credential concurrently with completing her last 6 months of the program. University wouldn’t agree. So, my daughter spent her last 6 months in a charter school.

That charter school runs pretty much on the principal that any discipline or enforcement of guidelines stifles creativity and initiative in the kid. Prevents that ‘out of the box thinking’. She attempted to teach 8th grade. I say attempted, because really, in that kind of environment there’s not much teaching or learning going on in the classroom. Fun for the teacher when every assignment has half the kids names missing from the papers-- despite reminding the kids just prior to them handing them in. Which means she can’t really complete her grade book or enter grades into the mandatory computer system. Which means every assignment required taking either 10 minutes when handing them back or 10 minutes when collecting them of trying to sort out the half which didn’t have names. Of course, since it’s unreasonable to expect kids to be able to function at the level that they can put their name on the paper, it’s unreasonable to expect them to stay still- so they’re free to enter and leave the classroom. Sometimes because they’re bored/uninterested in the subject and expect them to learn to focus on something for 30 minutes that isn’t floating their boat right this second is unreasonable. Sometimes to meet a boyfriend or girlfriend somewhere else in the school… but I digress. Back to grading? Couldn’t really figure out why my daughter had to bother since, she was expected to apply ‘adjustments’ based on each kid vice grading to a standard. Did they have a diagnosed learning disability? Did she suspect an undiagnosed one? Were they an ESL student? What was their primary language? Did she think their home life was supportive of their academic effort? In that environment, the grade meant pretty much nothing-- although the marked up paper did provide exact feedback on -]mistakes/-] sorry, recommendations for approaches/wording/grammar more consistent with standard past usage they should consider. But spelling is pretty much optional and shouldn’t they be given full credit for using real world applied language skills (i.e. writing the same way as a text)?

I do have to admit she enjoyed thoroughly when the university observer was in her classroom one day and had to do an ‘urgent’ correction. That is, tell my daughter to stop a kid and discipline them for sending a text in the class. My daughter had to explain, to the observer’s shocked disbelief, the policy that, yes indeed, authorized students to text/use cell phones in class. As she went back to teaching, another kid looked right at the observer and made a call on their cell phone. According to policy, my daughter just asked the special little flower to step outside to complete it.

My daughter loathed teaching at that school. Trying to cater to every single kid’s desire to not be involved or bored in any particular lesson or activity meant the class was one long continuous series of disruptions or ‘adjustments’ to account for various individuals.

And yet my kid’s private school extended her a lot of grace when she was a little kid, freshly diagnosed with Asperger’s and frankly a whole lot of trouble. They worked with me, they worked with her, I read a million books on autism, child behavior and positive reinforcement, I worked with her, her dad worked with her, the psychologist worked with her, and she did a whole bunch of therapy (physical therapy, social skills circle, horse therapy, etc). And 6 years later (she’s a 7th grader, just a little younger than your daughter’s students), she’s still plenty quirky, but she’s getting to be a lovely young woman and has grades ranging from low 90s to 100 and I haven’t gotten a complaint from school about behavior in a long, long time.

Funny how that works.

 

[HouseArrest]

And yet my kid’s private school extended her a lot of grace when she was a little kid, freshly diagnosed with Asperger’s and frankly a whole lot of trouble. They worked with me, they worked with her, I read a million books on autism, child behavior and positive reinforcement, I worked with her, her dad worked with her, the psychologist worked with her, and she did a whole bunch of therapy (physical therapy, social skills circle, horse therapy, etc). And 6 years later (she’s a 7th grader, just a little younger than your daughter’s students), she’s still plenty quirky, but she’s getting to be a lovely young woman and has grades ranging from low 90s to 100 and I haven’t gotten a complaint from school about behavior in a long, long time.

Funny how that works.

Your situation sounds a whole lot different than what he was describing, don’t you think? He was showing us a situation in which parents and teachers were constantly making excuses for poor behavior of students. They were grasping at straws and looking for reasons, any reasons, why nobody should have expected anything out of those kids.

Did you not expect a lot from your daughter? It sounds like you did, and that is why she was successful.

 

[Xantippe]

Your situation sounds a whole lot different than what he was describing, don’t you think? He was showing us a situation in which parents and teachers were constantly making excuses for poor behavior of students. They were grasping at straws and looking for reasons, any reasons, why nobody should have expected anything out of those kids.

Did you not expect a lot from your daughter? It sounds like you did, and that is why she was successful.

Exactly.

But I’m saying:

1. We have to meet children where they are.
2. We have to be willing to spend time, money and effort on moving the needle forward.
3. We need to be strategic and prudent. We can’t just say, “Do blah blah blah or else” to anybody (including a child) and expect good results results will invariably follow. There’s always going to be a number of children who are interested in finding out what “or else” looks like. (I was like that as a kid in early elementary school.) If they get no positive attention, they will actually prefer negative attention (i.e. punishment) to being ignored. We can’t alternate between ignoring children and punishing them if we want good results.

(Howard Glasser’s Transforming the Difficult Child is very good on all of this.)

1. Relationships are like bank accounts. We have to make deposits before we can make withdrawals, and we can’t keep our account open indefinitely if we’ve let the balance fall to zero. Sometimes, when we don’t get what we want from another person, it’s because our relationship is overdrawn.

 

[silver_moon]

Is this silly? I look at my daughter differently now…I listen to her more attentively than I did before. When she asks me the 100th question of the day, I answer her or google it for her with more enthusiasm. When she forgets her hat for the 100th time, I understand that she has trouble remembering things bc her mind is always busy with information.

She still loses a point on her rewards chart though if she forgets her hat AGAIN

I think it makes sense, b/c you’re focused on nurturing her which is a good thing.

 

[jmcrae]

Ha!

There’s a famous experiment where teachers were told that certain randomly chosen students had high test scores.

The students that were falsely identified as higher-performing then had their real performance rise because of the impact of teachers having higher expectations of them.

(I can’t find a cite for this–it doesn’t contain any good googleable terms.)

I remember that study; I think it’s in *The Tipping Point. * or else in The Seven Habits - one of those, anyway - and how you react to people really does have an effect on their performance.

 

[silver_moon]

Do you have other children? You’d probably better start looking at *all *of them differently now.

The only thing worse than being the “gifted” student who still routinely goes through the embarrassment of not knowing where her hat went is to feel the bitterness of being the sibling of the student who is celebrated for being gifted, with everybody hanging on her every question like it came from Einstein, even though she doesn’t work that hard and couldn’t keep her head with her shoulders if it weren’t attached.

Everybody wants to be listened to as if their ideas matter. Everybody needs to be encouraged to get out there with an “if you don’t ever fall, you haven’t pushed yourself yet” attitude. Everybody needs to know that they have gifts inside them and tools outside them that they need to work to uncover and put to use. Everybody needs to know that success won’t fall into their laps and that a warm circle of love will always be theirs to give and receive, even on the days when they aren’t all that excited to be around themselves.

Nobody, Einstein included, ever got anywhere without being willing to fail and willing to work. As for being gifted, the most important thing is to listen for what God means for you to do. Moses wasn’t “gifted”–no human would have chosen him as a spokesman. The Apostles weren’t learned. Mozart, meanwhile, died poor and before his time, probably the victim of a combination of an arduous work schedule and fast living among ill-chosen company. He did not live to see how celebrated he would become after death. How many gifted persons have followed in his unfortunate footsteps in one way or another since! What could be more tragic?

Be at God’s disposal, that is the most important thing.

notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Mozart-Wolfgang-Amadeus.html

I agree about Mozart. He was pushed very hard in childhood, along with his sister who was also a prodigy. Their father was an ambitious musician and performer. At very young ages Mozart and his sister were playing for royalty and touring Europe as performers. He also became famous not long after turning ten years old. The cause of Mozart’s early death isn’t really known from what I understand, but a physically difficult childhood traveling, gaining favor with royals, and performing may have had something to do with it.

There are probably some people who push their children that hard, but I hope not many. I’ve only heard of two children who were pushed to that extreme, one was William James Sidis who was pushed extremely hard, had very high achievement in childhood, and then burned out in adulthood. The other story was told in the documentary Shine, about a pianist pushed and abused by his father. In those cases mental illness may have played a role.

In all of these situations it seemed that the father/parents unfortunately viewed their child’s achievement as the most important thing, and seemed very focused on stellar early accomplishments. Parents who raise their kids this way seem focused on performance rather than healthy development.

I like your point about being at God’s disposal.